‘What if’

Do you pursue ‘what if’ thoughts?

The mind likes to take you for a ride, if you allow it to. It may project into an imaginary future situation which creates fear or worry within you. When you invest in these thoughts, you are identifying with them and they become a part of you.

Whenever we project into a future moment we are at the mercy of our minds fantasy. Like a dog chasing a scent, it can become instinctive to follow the thought wherever it wants to take us. If we have sad, angry, unhappy emotions connected to that thought, the outcome of the thinking will likely be equally negative.

Really think about that for a minute. You have likely day dreamed today, or followed a thought, without even realising it at the time.

Of course thinking into the future has its uses. What time is my plane leaving tomorrow. What should I make for dinner, and so on. But after using the tool of thinking, it benefits us to lay it to rest and return to the present moment, and not endlessly chase the future moment.

Ultimately the present moment is all we ever have. When the future arrives, it is the present moment. When we think about the past, we are doing so from the present moment.

I often say awareness is key, being aware of your thoughts and repetitive thinking patterns. Even if you feel you can’t change your thinking, having that awareness is a huge step in itself.

With awareness comes an element of choice I.e. we are aware of a ‘what if’ thought and have a choice whether or not to follow it. This isn’t to say it is easy to choose not to follow a thought. But you now have an option.

Present moment anchor

This is a very simple but effective exercise you can try to break chain of thinking. It is something which can be done to ‘bridge the gap’ and to act as an aid in being present - with practice, this exercise won’t have to be repeated each time a ‘what if’ thoughts arises - instead the mind becomes more quiet and the background commentary of thoughts becomes less hostile. The mind may quickly acknowledge the ‘what if’ thought, but then it immediately detaches from it upon returning to the present moment, and the thought dissolves.

After reading these next points, I invite you to close your eyes and hold your hands out in front of you either in gentle fists, or palms open.

Without looking at your hands, how do you know they are even there?

You can probably feel ‘something’.

What is that feeling? Explore it, learn everything you can about it.

The feeling which you are experiencing is the energy of your inner body.

When you are fully concentrating on that energy, it is impossible to be thinking of ‘what if’ thoughts. Instead you are grounded in the present moment, with the only thoughts present being ones of the sense of the inner body’s energy.

This can be repeated whenever any negative thoughts arises.